"The Moderate Constituencies and Demands of Progressivism"
 
 

Introduction

Almost immediately after the political realignment of the latter 1890s and the demise of the Populist party, new groups of American citizens recognized the need for reform. Far from dying off with the Populist party, the demand for an adjustment to the realities of a complex, modern America spread across the United States. The new reformers, known as Progressives, were primarily city dwellers and quite different from the farmers of the nation demographically, occupationally, socially, etc. However, they shared a belief with their Populist predecessors that the laissez faire government policy that dominated Americaís first century was obsolete and incapable of solving the problems of an urban and industrial America. From 1900 to 1920 the Progressives succeeded in enacting their demands and adjusting American government at all levels.

Population and Demographic Trends Encourage Progressive Reform

Progressivism was primarily an urban-based reform movement. It sought to adjust the government to a rapidly-changing America - an America increasing in population, urbanizing rapidly, and becoming more ethnically and culturally diverse. The scope and rapidity of these changes was phenomenal. Between 1880 and 1910, the population of the country increased by some 67 percent. One reason for such growth was an unprecedentedly heavy wave of immigration, primarily from eastern and southern Europe. Between 1881 and 1910, 17.6 million people immigrated to the United States. And Americans were moving to the city in record numbers. Nearly three-quarters of the population lived in rural areas in 1880. The 1920 federal census revealed that fifty-one percent - now the majority - lived in urban locales. Such change within one generation created an environment supportive of change.

As the United States grew, moved to the city, and became more ethnically and culturally diverse, it witnessed new and vexing problems. The increased population put a greater demand on the resources of the country. New living abodes and jobs were necessary. The unprecedented immigration to the United States from Eastern and Southern Europe placed new strains on the social fabric of the country. The new immigrants were predominantly poor and lower-class by American standards of that era. Because of their plight in this strange new land, they were manipulated by the city bosses and political machines. Many Americans feared the country was slipping away from them to hordes of "foreigners." The incredibly swift growth of the American cities was accompanied as well by a plethora of new problems - corrupt political machines, monopolistic municipal services, lack of organization and planning, health, sanitation, slums, etc. The need to deal with all of these problems and changes helped bring on the Progressive reform movement.
 
 

The Moderate Constituencies of Progressivism

The Progressive movement was a shifting coalition of extremely diverse groups, each with its own motivation and idea of what "progressive reform" meant. Rather than a homogeneous, cohesive movement, the Progressives were a confluence of very different reform sentiments. As your textbook states: "Disparate groups united in an effort to improve the well-being of many groups in society."

As a result of industrialization, the concentration of the business sector, and the influx of millions of new immigrants, the middle-class American felt his position in American society threatened. The United States had always been dominated by its large middle-class but now that middle-class felt the country slipping away to the super-rich produced by the Industrial Revolution and the rise of big business. They witnessed the ostentatious lifestyles practiced by this wealthy elite and recoiled in disgust. At the same time, they recoiled in horror at the lifestyles and squalid conditions of the new immigrants living in the slums of the Northeast. They saw the tremendous political influence wielded by both the robber barons because of their money and the city bosses because of the large blocs of immigrant votes that they controlled.

They were concerned that the fabric of American society was being stretched to its breaking point. They feared that if nothing were done to ease this mounting tension a violent confrontation would ensue between the very rich and the very poor with the middle-class caught between the two extremes. A government of the very rich or one dominated by the very poor would ignore the needs and values of the middle-class. Therefore, the middle of American society saw Progressivism as a way of easing tension on the social fabric of the country and reasserting middle-class values and control. Progressive income taxation could be used to pull the very wealthy back towards the middle while at the same time generating the revenue required to fund services and programs for the very poor and the immigrants to pull them up toward the middle.

Various occupations wishing to upgrade themselves into "professions" were important supporters of Progressive reform. Prior to the turn of the century, the fields of medicine, law, architecture, engineering, nursing, etc. were quite different from what they are today. Prior to the Progressive Era, these were open occupational fields in many areas of the country - there were no requirements for college or post-graduate training, there were no requirements that one must pass certain qualifying examinations before practicing the trade, there were no requirements that one must be licensed before practicing the trade, etc. These occupational groups wished to institute such requirements to upgrade the quality of the people in their fields and to limit entry into their occupations in order to drive up both status and income. These groups realized that they could not institute these requirements themselves; these changes could only be instituted effectively by a more active government that had the force of law behind it. These groups formed their professional organizations during the Progressive Era and suppored government legislation to force minimum requirements and licensing programs. Small businessmen at the turn of the century felt incapable of competing successfully with the giant industrial corporations that arose during the Gilded Age. These small business operators felt government had fallen under the domination of the industrial magnates who were preying upon the small business owners - driving them into bankruptcy and buying them out at pennies on the dollar. They supported a more active governmental regulatory effort with an antitrust thrust. Only through such a change in government policy could small businesses survive and compete successfully. They wished to see a return to an earlier American business system - one in which competition between numerous business entities in an open marketplace determined price. The Progressive movement was also supported to a degree by some big business interests. Big businessmen realized that the demand for governmental regulation of the business sector had not been satisfied by passage of the Interstate Commerce Act and the Sherman Antitrust Act. Rather, the demand for stronger regulation kept building. Some large business owners therefore sought to coopt or moderate these demands by supporting milder governmental regulatory measures. If big business could moderate demands for stronger consumer-oriented regulatory efforts, it would avert disaster and, at the same time, perhaps bring about regulation that would also serve the needs of business. The "right" kind of governmental regulation, with the force of law behind it, could achieve goals that businessmen had been unable to achieve for themselves - limiting entry into the market, establishing "rationalized" competition, imposing standardization, etc. Some of the poor living in the slums of Northeastern cities supported Progressivism because they desired a more active government which supplied social welfare type services and dealt with the problems of the cities. Some of the old aristocratic families of the country resented the extraordinary riches accruing to a totally new group of individuals as a result of industrialization and the rise of big business. They felt threatened by the new rich and supported progressive taxation measures and stronger governmental regulation of business to limit the wealth and power of the "neauvo riche". The old aristocratic families reasoned that while progressive taxation would limit their wealth, they would have their social status left while the new rich without their money would be nothing. Feminists were among the strongest supporters of many of the various reform movements at the turn of the century. They, however, had their own particular demands - equal pay for equal work, more equitable divorce and property settlement laws, greater educational opportunities, birth control, etc. However, the feminist movement prized above all else the right to vote. They felt that female suffrage was the key to gaining all of their other objectives. If only they could gain suffrage, politicians would quickly accede to their other demands in order to court their votes at election time. The drive by many Americans to ban the production, sale, and consumption of alcoholic beverages played an important role in the Progressive movement. Prohibitionists reasoned that a ban on alcohol would not only produce a sober more moral country but would solve or at least address numerous other problems in this modern American society. Drunkenness would decline but so too would poverty, family violence, slum living conditions, worker absenteeism, etc.
 
 

These were only some of the most important constituencies of Progressivism but it should be apparent from this discussion that Progressivism was a diverse and widespread movement. Further, the constituencies of reform, unlike their predecessors the Populists, were seen as mainstream and non-threatening. This made their concerns and proposals more acceptable.
 
 

The Moderate Demands of Progressivism

If the constituencies of progressive reform were extremely diverse and viewed as moderate by the American people, the same can be said for the specific governmental adjustments they demanded to solve the problems of an urban, industrial, and culturally-diverse America.

The Progressives demanded significant change in the field of taxation. They agreed with their Populist predecessors on the need for tax measures that would shift the tax burden from the lower income groups to the wealthy who were better able to shoulder the burden. A progressive federal income tax theoretically would do just that. Congress proposed a constitutional amendment to institute such a tax in 1909 and it was ratified and put into operation in 1913. Progressive inheritance taxes were also proposed to tax the immense fortunes beginning to pass from the industrial magnates to their children. As Progressives gained control of state governments in various sections of the country such as Wisconsin under Governor Robert LaFollete, they began to institute progressive taxation at the state level as well. One of the most important areas of Progressive reform was local government. Progressives felt that as the United States underwent urbanization, local government had to be strengthened, rendered more efficient, and made less corrupt if it were to deal with the vexing problems plaguing the new American cities. They were determined to take local government away from the bosses and political machines and operate them on a business-like basis. The following were some of the more important changes the Progressives initiated in this field. The Progressives, like the Populists before them, felt that government had slipped beyond the control of "the people." Government, in their opinion, was unduly influenced by the wealthy and by the big city bosses and political machines. They therefore proposed measures to make democracy more directly responsible to the needs of all the people. Progressives also proposed an extension of civil service to cover more workers in the federal bureaucracy and restrictions on corporate lobbying efforts to make the federal government more efficient and less manipulable by big business interests and the rich. Like the Populists before them, the Progressives felt that the federal governmentís regulatory efforts had to be strengthened and expanded. They pointed out that there were numerous loopholes in the Interstate Commerce Act (1887) and the Sherman Antitrust Act (1890) and that such laws had been further weakened by the rulings of a reactionarily conservative judicial system. They therefore demanded that loopholes be closed and that new laws strengthening and expanding governmental regulatory efforts be passed. Big business must be controlled in the public interest.

The Hepburn Act of 1906 sought to close loopholes in the Interstate Commerce Act and strengthen the power of the Interstate Commerce Commission. The regulation of the banking industry was accomplished under the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. Progressives sought to close the loopholes of the Sherman Antitrust Act through the Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914. The Federal Trade Commission was created by Congress in 1914 to regulate business methods and to enforce the new antitrust initiatives. Furthermore, the federal government under pressure from Progressives became more aggressive and successful in its prosecution of antitrust cases than ever before. The Northern Securities Company, Standard Oil, the American Tobacco Company, the DuPont corporation, and the Beef Trust were all successfully prosecuted.

The Progressives also launched new regulatory efforts to adjust America to the modern age. Child labor laws, employer liability laws, a Pure Food and Drug Act, and a federal meat inspection law were all legacies of the Progressive Era.

Given the diversity of the Progressive Movement, there were demands/adjustments which fit into no one general category. The demand for a nationwide prohibition on the production, sale, and consumption of alcohol was one such demand. Prohibition was accomplished at the very end of the Progressive Era with the passage of the eighteenth amendment in 1919 and the Volstead Act of 1920. Protective tariffs were lowered, fulfilling a demand of both the Populists and the Progressives, in 1913 by passage of the Underwood-Simmons Act. Compulsory education financed by taxation also came about across the country as a way of assimilating the new immigrants and easing social tensions in modern America. Female suffrage also became a fact through constitutional amendment.
 
 

Just as the constituencies of Progressivism were diverse and moderate, so too were the adjustments in American life they worked to achieve. This cross-section of America demanded not the dismantling of the government and economic system but small but important refining adjustments to meet the demands of a new America.
 
 

Reasons for Progressive Triumph in Contrast to the Failure of Populists

In contrast to the rather limited constituency of Populism, the Progressives were far more numerous. The sheer breadth of Progressivism was one of the most important reasons for the success of the movement. They were truly a cross-section of America.

While the Populists had been viewed as extremists and radicals, the Progressives were seen as moderate and respectable because of who they were. In a sense, the moderate constituencies of progressivism lent their respectability to many of the Populist demands and thereby succeeded in enacting them into law.

The Progressives succeeded in part because the environment for reform had been prepared by the actions of the Populists in the 1890s. The Progressives were not the first to demand changes in the laissez faire government policies of the United States.

Finally, the Progressives also succeeded because they worked within the two party system rather than opting for a third party challenge. This made the Progressives seem less threatening and their demands therefore more acceptable.